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UPDATED SITE NOW LIVE!!! We have updated our website Teaching Guides to integrate the information below in a more organized and curated presentation. If you have navigated to this page from an older email or announcement, please visit our “Teaching Guides” page instead: https://ceils.ucla.edu/resources/teaching-guides/

Zoom Help: Need one-on-one help this week or someone to sit in on your first Zoom session? Email lazoomassistance@gmail.com to reach a team of undergraduates standing by to help out. Indicate when you’d like an appointment, and they’ll respond as soon as possible with a Zoom link.

1:1 Pedagogy Consultation:Schedule a 30 min. meeting with the CEILS Director or Associate Directors: Email us at media@ceils.ucla.edu. Please briefly describe the help or advice you need and we will connect you with someone on the team.

This online site is designed to introduce UCLA faculty and instructors to online teaching. It’s a quick-start guide to help you make effective use of what is available in CCLE and other resources to inspire you with remote instruction for designing and teaching courses online in spring quarter and beyond. This instructor-facing site is constantly growing so we encourage you to visit often! https://ccle.ucla.edu/course/view/teaching-remotely

A Message from the CEILS Team

We understand that this is a stressful time for both instructors and students. We urge you to embrace an attitude of empathy, understanding, and flexibility with your students, your TAs, and UCLA staff and administration as we work together to figure out how to best support our community in adjusting our mode of instruction. Please be flexible and equitable with your grading and consider what alternatives you might provide in the coming days and weeks.

Please review the resources below to familiarize yourself with the tools that can support a transition to teaching remotely. We, along with many support staff across campus, are preparing additional guides and trainings to support you. If using Zoom or CCLE is new to you, we encourage you to see the coming quarter as an opportunity to learn some new technology skills that can benefit your teaching experience overall in the future.

We will provide announcements on updated resources and training opportunities as they become available. In the meantime, you can email media@ceils.ucla.edu with any questions or concerns.

CEILS Weekly Zoom Sessions (webinars, drop-in office hours)

CEILS One-on-One Pedagogy Consultations

Need help planning for finals, summer course design, or getting a start on fall planning? Schedule a 30 min. meeting for a one-on-one consultation with the CEILS leadership team.

Description: These sessions will provide a framework to help you plan to deliver the first weeks of class in an online format. We will discuss which elements of your course will need to be adapted, how to plan for interactivity and engagement online, review existing open educational resources, and share ideas that you may want to include in your syllabus and course design.

Description: In this webinar we will model how to implement interactive live activities using Zoom features including break-out rooms, screen-share, polling, and chat while incorporating additional tools like Google docs/forms. We will also review some strategies for asynchronous interactivity in CCLE discussion forums.

Description: In addition to sharing best practices for remote testing that disincentives cheating as well as the strengths and weakness of remote proctoring, we will spend time discussing alternative strategies to consider for remote assessment of student learning. We invite you to review the checklist currently in preparation describing recommendations from campus stakeholders across various disciplines.

Description: Captioning videos is an important step to take to ensure that they are accessible for all students. This webinar will demonstrate how to do this using CCLE tools as well as add interactivity to your video content.

Description: The goal of this Zoom session is to brainstorm and discuss pedagogically optimal strategies for delivering remote/ online labs. Among us are many wonderful experts on campus who have been actively thinking about these issues already and have tried activities out in the past and thus have experiential knowledge we can all draw from in making decisions that make sense for our students. We will explore multiple approaches, with attention to accessibility issues and other equity concerns as part of the design/planning process.

Many people from education networks from across the country have contributed to this list of resources. We thank the science education community for sharing their knowledge of materials and, when possible, providing free access to resources during the coming term.

Gradescope is a great tool that can be utilized by instructors and TAs to score assignments with open-response questions (e.g., exams, quizzes, homework problems). This platform also allows for easy uploading of student documents remotely. UCLA has a licensing agreement with Gradescope (www.gradescope.com) for their online grading tool, which can be incorporated into CCLE course sites. At this webinar, learn how to set up Gradescope in CCLE and incorporate some helpful grading features for your class.

Why use Gradescope?

Benefits to instructors and TAs:

Rubric-based scoring system allows for more consistent and fair grading

Choice of using a positive (points added for correct answers) or negative (points taken away for wrong answers) rubric.

Positive scoring rubrics reward students for their achievements and sets a positive tone in a classroom – one that is focused on what students are doing right, rather than what students are doing wrong.

Instructors may incorporate this grading tool into their CCLE course sites by following the instructions provided on CCLE (click here) and summarized here as follows:

Sign in to CCLE, and turn editing on.

Navigate to the section of your CCLE site where you want the link for Gradescope to appear, and click Add an activity or resource. Select External tool, and click the Add button.

In the box for Activity name, enter a name, such as “Gradescope”.
From the drop-down menu for Preconfigured tool, select Gradescope.
Scroll down and click the button Save and return to course.

Click the link that has been created. This will open Gradescope in a new browser tab, and Gradescope will ask if you want to link this course with a new or existing course in Gradescope. Assuming you have not already created a Gradescope course for this class, select A new Gradescope course, and click Link course.

After editing settings in Gradescope as desired, select Roster from the left panel. Click the Sync Moodle Roster button, and then Sync Roster. Go through the resulting roster in Gradescope and make sure your TA(s) have been assigned the “TA role”, rather than being listed as “Student”. (This is a known bug in the CCLE-Gradescope link.)

Tips for Using Gradescope at UCLA

For additional tips using Gradescope, please click here to see our FAQ document. You may email media@ceils.ucla.edu if you need further assistance.

Updates from UCLA – Planning for Academic Continuity

The UCLA Administration Planning for Academic Continuity website is the central hub for accessing up-to-date resources to support the transition to remote teaching. These resources are made available by a collaborative community of educators in teaching and learning as well as educational technology units across campus. We recommend visiting this website several times per week for updates: https://www.adminvc.ucla.edu/covid-19/academic-continuity

Updates from the Chancellor’s Office on COVID-19 and UCLA’s planning status can be found on their website.

Tips for instructors working with TAs and LAs when setting up your spring course

Tips for instructors working with TAs and LAs when setting up your spring course:

Be proactive about contacting your TAs and LAs well in advance of the start of the term.

Explain how your course will be operationalized. Even if you don’t know all of the answers yet, let them know you are considering the following: When/how will the instructional team meet each week? Which components of the class will be on Zoom? Will lectures be synchronous or asynchronous? What are the roles of the TA and LA in lectures, discussions, and labs? What are the expectations for office hours? How will assessments be administered and assignments collected and graded?)

Make a plan for responding to student inquiries about your class. They will need to be reassured that you will support them and help attend to their academic and social-emotional well-being.

Make sure your TAs and LAs know where to get training on Zoom and other educational technology platforms and tools that you will be using during the quarter.

Take a deep breath — it’s going to be okay!

Communicating with Your Students about Remote Learning

This is probably a stressful and uncertain time for your students and many of them will have questions and many will be in need of additional support. Here are a few resources and suggestions to help your students thrive in an online learning environment. The official page for student resources for remote learning (you can add this link on CCLE or in your syllabus): https://www.teaching.ucla.edu/resources/student-remote-learning

This is likely a distressing and confusing time for your students as they navigate learning in a completely different environment than most of them are used to. Many of them also may be experiencing significant mental stress and health concerns.

Student Affairs Service Status UpdatesThe office of Student Affairs has a list updating students on the status of campus services available during the campus closure including the Ashe Student Health Center, Bruin Resource Center, Career Center, Center for Accessible Education, Counseling and Psychological Services, Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars, and more

The UCLA Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL@UCLA) is dedicated to providing professional development and training in pedagogy to graduate students and postdocs. They have compiled several resources for both graduate students and postdocs to help them navigate the transition to remote teaching and learning. View the web page here..

The Graduate Student Resource Center has created a comprehensive guide with resources available for graduate students and other professionals on campus. Types of resources include academics and program information, remote teaching and learning, emergency services, housing and financial aid, health and wellness, safety and support, and more..

In response to the pandemic spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, a number of universities consider teaching courses online. ​Kudu​ is offering resources to help universities meet the challenge of educating students in these exceptional circumstances. Kudu​ learning materials can easily be adapted for online instruction, and we feel compelled to provide our online textbooks, autograded homework, and polling system​ free of charge with full support. ​Furthermore, ​Kudu​ ​staff will help customize​ ​Kudu​ courses to fit the needs of specific classes​ free of charge​. Please contact ​support@kudu.com if you have any questions or if you want to take advantage of this offer.

About this page: We are making every effort to keep this page up-to-date and accurate, and also to give proper credit to the various groups across campus offering support services and resources. If you see anything here that needs editing or if you have a resource/event that should be added to this page, please notify media@ceils.ucla.edu so we can update immediately. Thanks!